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Socialist victory may bolster al-Qaeda: analysts
In American politics, it’s called the October Surprise: a dramatic, last-minute event that swings the election into the hands of the incumbent president. In Spain, that surprise came seven months early, a terrorist attack that turned a near-certain win for a pro-U.S. government into a stunning defeat with potentially ominous repercussions.

On both sides of the Atlantic on Sunday, analysts were suggesting that the turnabout in Spain raises troubling questions for the global war on terrorism and future support for the war in Iraq, questions that eventually could reverberate back into the American political scene.

Europe’s citizenry never bought President Bush’s argument that Iraq was a terrorist nation. Leaders such as Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar dared to support Bush and buck that opposition — in Spain’s case up to 90%.

Now many inevitably will wonder whether events in Spain send a signal: that world leaders back Bush at their political peril or at the peril of their citizens.

"This event rivals 9/11 in terms of a victory for al-Qaeda," says homeland security consultant Randall Larsen. "They just influenced an election. That’s a frightening development because it’s only going to encourage them."

"It’s not that we’ll lose political support for a war that’s already pretty unpopular," adds Michael O’Hanlon, foreign policy and defense expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "What’s truly troubling is that this may be seen as a model by al-Qaeda and they may try to test it to see other countries’ resolve."

Robin Niblett, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the results must be analyzed carefully.

"Three days ago it looked as if the (Popular Party) would win but it was always pretty tight. My sense is that historically over past four to five years people have grudgingly supported the Popular Party," he said. With the economy strong, "people were willing to overlook the war in Iraq even though there was huge public opposition to it."

The terrorist attacks "very possibly turned the swing vote against the Popular Party. In which case you can make the argument that that influenced the election. Whether that was deliberate or not is hard to tell."

The Socialists, he says, will be "far more skeptical of the United States. And this swings a balance in Europe. It makes (Britain’s) Tony Blair look weaker."

Political analysts said it appeared that pro-Socialist voters who sat out the election four years ago were inspired by the bombing to cast ballots.

"The Spanish government’s decision immediately to blame ETA signaled a defensiveness about its support for the war in Iraq," said Lee Feinstein, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served in President Clinton’s State Department leadership. "It’s different from the picture in the United States, where when there’s a crisis, there’s ... generally support for the incumbent."

Many voters said they were angry that the incumbents were too quick to blame Basque separatists for the attacks.

Ernesto Sanchez-Gey, 48, who voted in Barcelona, said, "I wasn’t planning to vote, but I am here today because the Popular Party is responsible for murders here and in Iraq."

Another voter, Paloma Galve, 50, a secretary at an engineering firm, said she narrowly missed being on one the trains and sees the bombings as fallout from Spain’s military alliances with Bush.

"We suffered the consequences of the ambitions of Mr. Aznar," she said.

The impact of Spain’s traumatic events could be slow to unfold on the U.S. political scene.

It could make it even more difficult for the administration to convince European allies to contribute more troops and money to the war and reconstruction in Iraq. The Spanish Socialists have promised to pull out Spain’s contingent of about 1,300 soldiers in July.

But Bush has not based his foreign policy on working closely with allies.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., appearing on CNN’s Late Edition, called the attack in Madrid very sophisticated, coming as it did right before the election. "And it just so happens that the Socialist Party candidate for the prime ministership indicated he would simply withdraw all the Spanish support in regards to Iraq. So I think it’s very politically sensitive."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., appearing on the same program, warned the Europeans to remember history.

"Anyone who thinks that if ... a nation’s troops stay out of a particular military conflict that they’ll be somehow protected from the fanatical Islamic terrorists, is just wrong," he said. "That’s the same kind of logic that led Neville Chamberlain in Munich to try to pacify Hitler in the late ’30s. And obviously that didn’t work," he said.

One immediate consequence of the bombings was fear of more attacks in Europe. Some terrorism experts say the pumped-up security in the USA after Sept. 11 makes Europe an easier and more attractive target.

• In Italy, which supported the U.S.-led war in Iraq, officials enlisted another 4,000 military personnel to guard potential targets.

• In Britain, America’s closest ally in the war, additional plainclothes policemen were ordered onto trains and aboard London’s heavily traveled subway system.

• Poland, which also has sent troops to Iraq, ratcheted up protection at airports and train stations.

But even nations that have resisted joining the U.S.-led war and occupation of Iraq heightened security. French President Jacques Chirac, the leading critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, put his country on high alert and increased surveillance at transport centers.

Border controls and patrols in public areas were expanded in Germany. German officials on Sunday called for an emergency meeting of European nations to reassess security. Others called for Europe-wide action to centralize anti-terror strategy, akin to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"Europeans have always intellectually known they were a likely target, but emotionally they never felt the same sense of being at war with Islamic terrorism as you do in the United States. This could change that," says Dana Allin, a European security specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in London.

"Not since 9/11 has the war on terror felt so close to home," wrote the Sunday Times of London. "After Madrid? The Eternal City will be hit," Il Messaggero said Sunday, warning that Rome could be the next logical target for Islamic terrorists.

The concern over a new wave of attacks could prod the European Union to enact a continent-wide counterterrorism policy, as many experts have urged since Sept. 11.

Critics say that individual intelligence and security agencies within each European country make fighting terrorism a logistical nightmare. That’s especially the case as the European Union becomes increasingly "borderless." At the same time, however, countries remain reluctant to share intelligence and other crucial data, such as on immigration.

Some experts say action may be needed akin to the Patriot Act in the United States. One sign that the Madrid bombings may serve as a wake-up call for a Europe-wide policy: France immediately allowed Spanish investigators into France, where ETA terrorists sometimes operate.

"The European Union will need a homeland security policy," says Rafael Bardaji, a defense analyst at the Real Elcano Institute in Madrid. "If it is al-Qaeda, we have to start doing things instead of saying things."
Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-03-15
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=28102